> But that hasn’t really changed our knowledge of alien life much. We still know it’s possible for it to be out there, but we have no idea if it is.

The Drake equation is a nice framework to determine the probability of life outside of our planet. Sure, the end result is still a big mystery, but many of the variables in the Drake equation have been solved or narrowed down (e.g., star formation, planet formation, etc.). To say that there has been no progress in the last 50 years is silly.